(This is a guest post by Jen Dotson & Gretchen Farah, Founders of Hautemommastuff.com)

The technology industry has a lower percentage of women entrepreneurs in comparison to other industries. This is odd considering Women-owned businesses are one of the fastest growing sectors in business.  However most of these businesses stay smaller, therefore making it harder to share proportionally the actual growth of these entrepreneurial enterprises.  This statistic should not discourage women from fulfilling their dreams.  We hope it encourages women to implement their business ideas and untapped potentials in efforts to create new and more profitable growth companies for women, by women.    Hautemommastuff (HMS) started in late 2005 because we asked ourselves “What do we love doing?” “What do we have fun doing?”  Besides loving being full-time mothers, we wanted to contribute to the part of our lives not focused on husbands, children, housework, schooling and other household things. At the time blogging was becoming quite a phenomenon, we decided to focus on the fashion and beauty industry because we love it and knew it had an established captive audience. We also saw a need for a fashion/beauty focused blog and newsletter in Lexington. Our first newsletter was sent to 200 of our friends, we now have over 3000 newsletter subscribers and average 10,000 pageviews daily! Google Analytics is a favorite HMS tool to reference referral sources and the geographic location of our site visitors.  HMS has readers literally all over the globe - Talk about exposure! We hosted our first HMS event [fall of 2006], and have since hosted over 30 parties at local businesses drawing close friends and lots of new faces.  Our local and Internet exposure continues to grow gaining us attention from industry leaders such as Proctor & Gamble, who selected HMS in 2008 as the exclusive partner to launch Tide's new product line SWASH, targeted to the fashion forward consumer. HMS has evolved into more than just a blog, it is an affiliate marketing program as much as an online magazine, and more.   We are often asked “How did you think of this and get it started?”  Here is some advice, suggestions and examples from our experiences thus far.  1. Focus – Don't be everything to everyone. Choose a specific industry. This is typically where passion comes in – take your passion and make it your mission.

2. Define – Do you have an idea, product, service? Make sure you can define exactly what you are going to offer your audience.

3.  Identify Target Audience - Get to know them well.   Survey your ideal customer, prospect, regularly, and observe them in action.

4.  Mentors / Industry Leaders – Identify mentors and use them as resources specific to basic business details regarding incorporating such as LLC, trademarks, taxes,  to additional business plan research. Mentors provide critical network ties and constructive feedback on managing your venture. Also find an industry leader and use it as an example, aspiration and guide. 

5.  Internet / Social Media Tools – Register your domain! Get your .com and set up your domain email account ASAP. Use the Internet to your advantage, be careful there are TONS of social media tools available.  Before you set up thousands of accounts, making life harder by having to update / check them all, research and subscribe to those most beneficial to your industry.  HMS mostly uses Facebook, Twitter, Technorati, LinkedIn, YouTube and FriendFeed.com. Find out about local social media groups, these serve as networking opportunities and resources helping you build your brand - being known for that you want to be known for.  Focus on and maintain things adding significant value to your efforts.

6.  Networking /Build Relationships – The old fashion way, word-of-mouth, talk about your business.  Think of ways to link businesses in a mutually profitable way. Be authentic when making connections and building personal relationships. Try to have a good balance between talking about your business and just listening to what others have to say. Be open to swap of services, but don’t sell yourself short.  If you undervalue your services, others may undervalue them as well.

7.  Make Money / Spend Money – We are learning to balance these two. Utilize the Internet to help save money on marketing.

Lessons we have learned along the way are to jump on ideas when we think of them based on industry demands and trends, because if we wait, someone else does it!  Also, communicate! And be open and willing to take a step back from your business and reevaluate at any given time.