Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs

Introduction

Have you ever thought, I wish someone made [insert idea here]? Or have you ever realized, I have a great idea for [insert idea here]? Or have you ever seen a new product and exclaimed, I could have invented that!

If your creative mind thinks this way, then you have the seeds of becoming an entrepreneur, a founder of a business. Today, there are more female entrepreneurs in the world than ever before: 12.9 million businesses are run by women in the United States, making up approximately 40 percent of all the companies in the United States. Together, these women-run businesses generate $1.9 trillion in sales each year! Also exciting is that 50 percent of women-operated businesses in 2019 were founded by women of color, and this number is increasing by about 7 percent each year.

But why do we rarely hear there their stories? And how can you start a business with your idea? This book was written to inspire kids to be the world’s next great entrepreneurs and business leaders. By reading the stories of how other people did it, you will learn how to do it yourself. (That’s also how the best business schools in the world teach entrepreneurship.)

Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs is all about how 15 women turned their ideas into some of the biggest and most successful companies in the world. This book features female entrepreneurs in five industries: food, health and beauty, science and technology, education, and clothing and fashion. In each story, you’ll find common threads linking each of these women.

First, when each female founder was a young girl, she showed hints of what she was both good at and passionate about. For example, Anne Wojcicki loved biology throughout school, and Christina Tosi enjoyed baking for friends and family. These precocious interests would prove to be very important later in life.

Second, each female founder gained valuable experience at her first job, learning skills that would later help her run her business. For example, Alli Webb worked at a salon blowing out and styling hair, and Cindy Mi taught kids in China how to speak English.

Third, each female founder had a moment in her life when her idea really came to fruition. Sometimes it happened slowly over the course of several years, like Jasmine Crowe’s desire to feed hungry people. Sometimes it came out of survival like Kathleen King, who reinvented her cookie business after a bad partnership. And sometimes it hit like a bolt of lightning, like how Sara Blakely had her idea for a new type of undergarment for women while getting dressed for a party. But one thing they all had in common—once that idea was in their heads, nothing could stop them and they all dove into the world of entrepreneurship.

Together, these 15 women are worth billions of dollars, employ tens of thousands of individuals, and have gone on to change the world. Now, it’s your turn.

1

Kathleen King: Tate’s Cookies

Kathleen walked into the vacant bakery. Two other bakeries had rented the space before, the landlord explained, and the air still smelled like flour. The kitchen was fully equipped with professional baking equipment and a large refrigerator. The space wasn’t huge, but significantly bigger than her mother’s kitchen at the farmhouse where she had baked her cookies for almost a decade. And the quaint storefront would be perfect to display and sell her baked goods. There was even a cash register in place.

I wonder why the other bakeries failed, Kathleen’s mother wondered.

Well, it’s obvious, Kathleen explained confidently. They didn’t have cookies as good mine.

Kathleen King was born on December 18, 1958. Her parents, Millie and Richard Tate King worked tirelessly to support their four children: Richie, Karin, Kevin, and Kathleen. Millie stood tall at five foot eight and was a registered nurse at Southampton Hospital, which brought in a meager but steady income. Her work schedule was anything but steady, however. Sometimes Millie worked the morning shift, which meant she had to arrive at work before the children woke up. And sometimes she worked the night shift, which meant she was gone the entire evening. As a result, Kathleen learned to be independent at a young age.

Tate, on the other hand, was a very short man, only five feet tall, about the height of an average seventh grader. But his short stature never held him back. He ran North Sea Farm, the family farm that included 15 acres of farmland, approximately 24 cows, and over 2,000 chickens. Tate sold milk to a local dairy and sold eggs to residents, restaurants, and grocery stores in Southampton, New York. Everyone knew and adored Tate King, who worked extremely hard, loved his community, and rarely left the farm. He often told his children, We’re the richest family in town because we’re richest in family, friends, and spirit.

Despite laboring day and night to make ends meet, the King family did not have much money. They didn’t go on vacations and never ate in restaurants. Sometimes, money was so tight that Tate would barter or trade animals from the farm for products or services his family needed. Once, he bartered half a steer to secure dentist appointments for his children.

But lack of money didn’t stop Millie and Tate from being extremely generous with their time and resources. Tate loved to help his neighbors with odd jobs that needed attention. He believed if you had two apples, you sold one and gave the other away. I’ve always told my kids to go out of your way for other people and help them every way you can, Tate once told Kathleen. If you can get along with people and you’ve got ambition, you’ve got it 95 percent made.

Mille and Tate King raised their four children to be fiercely independent with more responsibilities than most adults. They parented by this philosophy: If you can walk, you can work. Everyone pitched in and helped both in the house and on the farm, regardless of gender or age. I had a mother who was ahead of her time, Kathleen recalls. It was all about the work that needed to be done before the day was over, inside and outside the house…. By the time I was 11, I could already make dinner, clean the house, do the laundry, work the farm, and wait on customers.

Growing up on the farm, Kathleen considered herself to be an average kid. She wasn’t the smartest student in the class and often struggled with her schoolwork. She wasn’t popular among the kids and felt more comfortable at the farm with her family. And she wasn’t particularly athletic, either. But Kathleen was a tough kid with a great work ethic. I was also a tomboy, Kathleen says. "Always dirty, always keeping up with everyone else on the farm. I firmly believed that if you could lift it, I could lift it."

Kathleen’s First Job

During the summer of 1969, Kathleen was 11 years old and busy with her regular chores around the house and farm. Her father approached her one breezy evening in early June. Visitors were starting to return to Southampton for summer vacation, and farm stand sales were picking up.

Tate needed extra help at the farm stand, and Kathleen’s older siblings had already gotten summer jobs in town. So, he turned to Kathleen. Tate explained that Kathleen would take over the business. That meant she would run the farm stand and bake cookies for it, to help generate some extra sales. Tate’s rules were clear. He would provide all the ingredients, including fresh eggs from the family farm, and Kathleen would keep all the profits from her cookie sales. In return, Kathleen would use her profits to buy her clothes for school in the fall.

It seemed like a fair deal, and Kathleen immediately responded, Yes, Daddy.

Kathleen’s Tip: Kids can do more than their parents think. Even as young as age seven or eight, children can learn from their parents how to handle a knife, how to turn on the stove, how to put things in the oven, and how to cook dinner.

The next morning, Kathleen woke up ready to bake cookies. She gathered the ingredients from her mother’s kitchen and turned to the only chocolate cookie recipe she knew—the Nestlé Toll House recipe on the back of the yellow chocolate chip package. But when Kathleen made her first few batches, she didn’t like how puffy and cakey they came out. So she started fiddling with the recipe. Kathleen added a little more butter in one batch and a little less flour in another. Some batches she cooked for longer, and for some batches she turned up the heat. Kathleen experimented in every way she could think of until they started to come out the way she preferred—thinner and crispier.

Kathleen visited the other farm stands in the area to taste her competition’s product. She wanted her cookies to stand out from the other cookies in Southampton. As she gathered research, one thing jumped out at Kathleen: everyone else’s cookies were small, about the size of a golf ball. I wanted to do something that drew attention to my cookies, so I made them very large, Kathleen explains. No one made large cookies back then.

Kathleen scooped huge mounds of cookie dough onto her baking tray and smiled. Approximately five inches in diameter, each cookie came out of the oven the size of a small plate. And they were thin … with a little crisp chew, Kathleen shares. Using the advice of her father, Kathleen decided to price her cookies inexpensively so that no one could resist them. With each batch, she let them cool, then placed six huge cookies into a plastic bag and sealed it tight to lock in the freshness. Kathleen sold each bag for only 59 cents.

Kathleen’s cookies were big, thin, chewy, and affordable. They were different from the cookies at anyone else’s farm stand. And customers loved them!

Who Invented the Chocolate Chip Cookie?

Entrepreneur and chef Ruth Graves Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie in 1938. At the time, she owned and operated the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. One day, Ruth ran out of ingredients while she was baking cookies for her guests. Improvising, she chopped up a Nestlé chocolate bar, thinking it would melt. Instead, the chocolate chips kept their form and the chocolate chip cookie was born! Nestlé paid Ruth Wakefield a lifetime supply of chocolate in exchange for her secret Toll House recipe, which is always featured on the back of the yellow Nestlé chocolate chip package.

Word spread fast. Some customers drove to North Sea Farm for Tate’s fresh eggs or vegetables and stumbled upon Kathleen’s delicious dessert. Some customers drove to North Sea Farm stand just for Kathleen’s cookies. Millie stepped in and helped Kathleen with the increased demand for her cookies. On her way home from work, Millie stopped at the local markets and picked up ingredients like flour, butter, and chocolate chips. Kathleen was grateful for her mother’s help, but occasionally the products that Millie purchased disappointed Kathleen: Sometimes she would buy ingredients on sale, and I refused to use them because they were not the quality I wanted! Even though she was only 11, Kathleen had a keen sense of high quality and accepted nothing but the best in her baking.

Before long, Kathleen’s cookies were the bestselling item at the farm stand. It was then that Tate realized his financial arrangement with Kathleen was not sustainable. Kathleen was selling so many cookies every single day, even more than he was selling eggs, fruit, or vegetables. Tate couldn’t afford to pay for his daughter’s ingredients and not receive any of the profits, so he renegotiated the deal with his daughter.

From then on, Kathleen would have to purchase her own ingredients, except for the fresh eggs from North Sea Farm, which Tate would continue to provide for free. Kathleen would keep all the profits from her cookie sales, which she could save or spend as she desired.

Since Kathleen’s costs had gone up, she had to figure out a way to make the same amount of profit as she had before. She didn’t want to increase the price of her cookies because her customers had gotten used to paying 59 cents a bag. She thought if she increased the price, she might lose some customers. So, Kathleen had another idea. She decided that instead of putting six cookies in a bag, she would put five. This simple change in her pricing strategy helped make up the difference in the extra costs of the ingredients. And her customers didn’t seem to mind!

For nine straight summers, Kathleen worked extremely hard. She woke up with the sun and started her first batch of cookies. She baked and sold cookies all day until the sun went down in the evening and the farm stand closed. Kathleen’s summers turned into 10-hour workdays, seven days a week. In addition to running her cookie business, Kathleen continued her other family responsibilities, which included tending the farm stand, collecting eggs from the chickens, and picking vegetables from the fields.

From 1969 to 1976, Kathleen’s Cookies became known as the best cookies in Southampton, New York—a summer destination for the rich and famous. Her early customers included celebrities, business executives, models, and professional athletes. She met people from other countries, cultures, and backgrounds.

In 1977 Kathleen turned 18 and graduated from Southampton High School. That summer she made over $5,000 in cookie sales, enough to buy herself a used car and put herself