Spark & Hustle: What Got You Started?

Thinking of leaving your 9 to 5 job for something more rewarding? These five notable moms did it! Hear why they started their own small businesses and how they followed their passion in order to become a huge success.

Need more inspiration? Learn about the 2012 Spark & Hustle Tour >>

 

 

About Our Featured Entrepreneurs:

Liz Lange
Liz Lange Maternity

Liz Lange never intended to be a fashion designer or an entrepreneur. She graduated from Brown with a BA in Comparative Literature and after working at Vogue for a few years, left to go work for a struggling fashion designer whose work she admired. As her friends started to get pregnant, she realized they all had the same complaint– that they couldn’t find anything that they liked to wear while pregnant and she set out to change the maternity fashion world!

 

 

Barbara Corcoran
Barabara Corcoran.com

Barbara Corcoran’s credentials include straight D’s in high school and college and twenty jobs by the time she turned twenty-three.  It was her next job that would make her one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country when she took a $1000 loan to start The Corcoran Group.  She parlayed that loan into a five-billion-dollar real estate business which she sold in 2001 for $66 million.  Read more about her story >>

 

Josie Natori
Natori

 

 “I have always believed there are no boundaries,” says Josie Cruz Natori, founder and CEO of The Natori Company. Exemplifying her own mantra, Josie Natori crossed continents, navigated varying careers, and surmounted countless obstacles, to create a global brand, Natori. Born Josephina Almeda Cruz, she credits her entrepreneurial nature to the matriarchal society she grew up in along with the support of her close-knit Filipino family. “Women are encouraged to be entrepreneurs,” says Natori of her home country, the Philippines.  Visit her website >>

 

 

 

Lisa Price
Carol's Daughter

 While some bottom-to-the-top success stories start in the mailroom, Lisa Price's journey begins in her kitchen. It was there in the early '90s that she began mixing fragrances and selling them out of her home. What started out as a rewarding hobby has blossomed into Carol's Daughter, a beauty-products business that counts some of the biggest names in entertainment -- Halle Berry, Jay -Z, Mary J. Blige, Jada Pinkett-Smith -- as loyal customers. Find out more about Lisa >>

 

Laura Geller
Laura Geller Makeup

 

From an early age, Laura knew her future would be in makeup. "I used to ask if I could work at the makeup counters for free just so I could be near the products," she explains. Her path to becoming one of the industry’s top makeup artists swiftly followed as she went from beauty school to Broadway – making up the theater industries rising stars. Soon after, Geller's handy work was gracing the small screen including on-air talent at CBS, NBC, AMC, and HB0.  Read more >>