Ladies Who Launch: Embracing Entrepreneurship & Creativity as a Lifestyle [Hardcover]

Victoria Colligan (Author), Beth Schoenfeldt (Author), Amy Swift (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 1, 2007

Ladies Who Launch is the first company to define the feminine approach to launching a business and to make the connection between starting a business and bringing creativity into your life with self-esteem and happiness.  The nationally acclaimed Ladies Who Launch program has enabled thousands of women across the country to break out of 9-5 and thrive in entrepreneurial enterprises that reflect their true passions, skills, and desires.  Located in more than 40 cities in the United States, the Ladies Who Launch incubators - workshops that give women the support and encouragement they need to embark on making their dreams reality - have inspired women to start businesses, grow existing companies, and tap into their creativity to develop essential services and products and enjoy the lifestyle of their dreams while doing it.
 
Available for the first time in book form, the 4-step incubator process, using self-tests, inspiring stories, and practical information, gives women the courage to dare to follow a cherished but unfulfilled dream.  Through this unique program women are encouraged to
Imagine it - allow a secret desire to come to lightSpeak it - choose a dream to pursueDo it - take effective action to make it realityCelebrate it - revel in successes, reward effort, and be good to yourself along the way 
Ladies Who Launch provides a proven approach to igniting a fire under a long-smoldering dream, have more fun, and catapult a lifestyle, relationship or occupation to an infinitely higher level.
 

"If you want to pop the lid off anything you ever thought you couldn't do, shouldn't have or couldn't achieve, you've bought the right book. All the tools you need to ignite a fire under a long smoldering dream, catapult a lifestyle, relationship, or career to a higher level are right here. Women tend to think of dreams as bigger than themselves, pies in the sky, morsels of imagination saved for a rainy day…in other words, out of reach. Well, guess what? Ladies Who Launch will reprogram how you think about your dreams so that they are as real as the coffee you drink each morning. They're real and they're all yours!  To be truly happy and inspired by the life you're living, you can take steps to wake up and launch your dreams right now. It is time to start believing that you can have what you really want.  With the help of Ladies Who Launch, you will."
            --Victoria Colligan & Beth Schoenfeldt
 
www.ladieswholaunch.com
 

VICTORIA COLLIGAN and BETH SCHOENFELDT, co-founders of Ladies Who Launch, created their company as a blend of on-line social networking and offline support system.  The offline support system takes the form of Incubators - inventive, supportive, networking workshops that take place in more than 30 cities across the country.  They also act as a marketing, public relations, and distribution channel for the thousands of women who are members of Ladies Who Launch.  They have been featured in women's and business publications including Fortune, the LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Working Mother, and much more. AMY SWIFT has been a close and early collaborator with Ladies Who Launch as a brand communications strategist, writer and as the leader of the Los Angeles and Orange County Ladies Who Launch Incubators.

 
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

You can do it! That's the message Colligan and Schoenfeldt, cofounders of the online networking and offline support system Women Who Launch, reinforce with this at-home version of their program. Emphasizing a more holistic approach than most business self-help titles, they take issue with some of the big tenets of M.B.A. programs, such as the need to start with business plans. Rather than step-by-step planning and checklists, they encourage would-be entrepreneurs to daydream as a way to define goals, whether it's a new business venture, changing course within a corporation or even a revitalized personal life. Along the way, they debunk commonly held misperceptions about glass ceilings and the mommy track, citing Labor Department statistics and their own extensive surveys. Offering exercises, questionnaires and additional resource lists scattered among success stories of women who have followed their advice, Colligan and Schoenfeldt urge readers to take action. Though the book appears to be written to promote membership in the authors' network, their enthusiasm for self-improvement will excite even nonjoiners into making positive changes. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Bean inspires confidence in her audience by coming across as trustworthy, energizing, and encouraging. The authors' feminine approach to entrepreneurial business incubation is made palpable through Bean's reading." ---Booklist Audio Review

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312359543
• ISBN-13: 978-0312359546
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Victoria is a serial visionary, leader in fun, and lover of style. Her insight, savvy and understanding of female entrepreneurship have been acknowledged and requested by experts world-wide. As the founder of Ladies Who Launch, the first new media company to provide encouragement, advice and exposure to women entrepreneurs, Victoria created a platform that blends feminine sensibility with business as it relates to lifestyle, creativity and the bottom line. Since founding Ladies Who Launch in 2002, Victoria has elevated the company to celebrity status with her appearances on "The Today Show," "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch," "ABC News," "Jean Chatsky Radio," "CBS News" and the "Morning Show with Mike and Juliet."

Victoria and Ladies Who Launch have also been featured in major print publications and online media sites; including, Entrepreneur, The New York Times, Working Mother, Fortune-Small Business, Time, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, Business Week, Women's Wear Daily, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC.com. A versatile entrepreneur with an understanding of the importance of lifestyle, family and flexibility to women business owners, Victoria co-authored Ladies Who Launch: Embracing Entrepreneurship and Creativity as a Lifestyle. She also contributed to Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneurial Soul. She is known for her coveted Daily Launch Tips on LadiesWhoLaunch.com, which are circulated to the 100,000 plus community of aspiring and established women entrepreneurs and are the foundation of her second book: Dream it. Launch it. Live it.

Often touted as the next Martha or Oprah, Victoria, through Ladies Who Launch, makes entrepreneurship in business and in life as accessible as Martha Stewart makes having a beautiful home and as emotionally resonant and life-changing as experiencing one of Oprah Winfrey's "aha" moments.

Ladies Who Launch was conceptualized when Victoria identified an underserved niche of launching ladies and made several realizations. She recognized that not only were women starting businesses at twice the rate of men, but they were driven by a need for freedom and flexibility. As a result, women were redefining traditional business models with great success. It was on these tenets that Victoria founded Ladies Who Launch, making it distinctive from other brands.

Determined to celebrate the entrepreneurial success of women at all stages, Victoria turned her passion for entrepreneurship into a thriving, sought after one-stop-shop for all things start-up. Ever resourceful, she drew upon her diverse experience in small business, law, website design, strategic partnerships, online media, marriage and motherhood to position Ladies Who Launch as a leading resource for women entrepreneurs at every phase of launching.

Ladies Who Launch has exponentially expanded the reach--and increased the impact--of female entrepreneurs in the marketplace since debuting. Prior to starting Ladies Who Launch, Victoria worked as director of content and business development for Amsale, a high-end wedding gowns designer, where she re-launched their Web site, started an online magazine and developed numerous profitable strategic partnerships. Victoria began her career as a corporate lawyer at Kelley Drye and Warren in New York. She holds a combined JD/MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and a BA with honors from Brown University. Victoria enjoys hiking, running, yoga, and traveling, which she does frequently, combining business and personal in the true spirit of entrepreneurship and the feminine!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 114 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars true disappointment with suggestions for other reading July 7, 2007

By Leigh Lewis

Format:Hardcover

After seeing the authors on TV, I ordered this book, as they were engaging and smart. I wanted to get an idea of what their "incubators" were like, as I was looking for some support for a new business idea. And I was hoping for some inspiration, like hearing real stories about other women who have started businesses and changed their lives. Ahead of time, I will say I don't mean to insult these women, or anyone who liked the book, but it was so off base as far as I was concerned that I wanted women who see things my way to save their time and cash. And I am a legit person-over the course of many years (I am 53) I have been a product and textile designer (for famous designers), a salesperson who ran a division of a corporation, and had my own design column in a newspaper. Plus have traveled around the world countless times for business. So I have some idea of what it takes to earn a living and be successful (and I only have an AAS degree, so I don't think you need to go to Harvard and get and MBA to do good stuff in the world) and if I had followed the airy nonsense these gals talk about, I would probably never have gotten a job.
I understand that this book is meant to encourage and get you revved up about an idea, not tell you how to exactly turn your idea into something concrete, but it was filled with anecdotes about women and their ideas that were uninspiring and offered nothing that seemed real. Not only do I feel like I wasted my money on this book, I feel like I was being talked down to. If you have never examined your own feelings and thoughts, have little or no experience in the real world of work, and want touchy-feely writing with no true info to back it up, this book is for you. It felt like I was reading a long informmercial for the product called "Ladies Who Launch," since this phrase is repeated about ten times per page. This is like a self-help book for women raised in the 50's...
It is fine to advise women to examine their feelings about what they want to do with their lives, but if you have ANY real life business experience, especially in a creative field like writing, design, advertising, TV, you will be insulted. The authors use the word "creative" to describe just about every thought or action a person might experience, and just because you can bake a nice cookie, for example, it is unrealistic to think that you can run a bakery. Some of the little things they suggest you do to pump yourself up and feel good about yourself are almost like parodies of that Saturday Night Live act, where Stuart Smiley looks into the mirror and tells himself, "I am good enough, I am smart enough, and goddamn it, I like myself."
I also stopped short at the suggestion that we read "The Secret," that book promoted by Oprah. So if you like that kind of stuff, I will apologize now for insulting your taste, but I find it just laughable. Yes, I do believe that what you put out there affects what you get back, but I have to say, I do not think that the thoughts we put out create our universe. Otherwise, I bet all of us would not be at our computers right this second, but someplace else we asked the universe to send us. I do not think that by praying or saying affirmations to be wealthy, for example, I will wake up the next day being offered a job at $500K/yr which is the sort of stuff that "The Secret" book and DVD suggest.
AND there are little charts all through "Ladies" that offer statistics about different life issues, broken down by headings like Ladies Who Launch, Gentlemen Who do this or that...the use of the words ladies and gentlemen just annoyed me as it was over and over....who are the people they talked to? Their relatives? How many were there? You can't talk to 6 people and if all of them say yes to an idea, say that 100% of people say yes to something. And all of this is a shame as the incubator idea sounds really interesting but I am am afraid that whomever leads them would sprout all this new age stuff. I would suggest people read the life stories of women who are successful. There is a design magazine that looks kind of too-cute but every issue covers sa few successful artists or creative business women-Mary Englebreight's Home Companion. You can learn a lot from reading about how they all started their business. Almost all are women, almost all started with a small idea at home, they show photos of their studios and how they got their start.
This book would have made an excellent magazine article.
I would also suggest the book by Anne Lamott, "Bird By Bird." It is about the true work of being creative (she is a writer) and how to go step-by-step to attain something. She mixes humor, autobiography, writing advise that can be applied to almost any endeavor....good luck, save your bucks.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and unoriginal November 29, 2007

By B. Baker

Format:Hardcover

This book is a complete re-hash of "you can do it" pop-psychology. It offered absolutely nothing new in terms of real concrete getting things done. The repeated references to "take time for yoga" and have parties to sell your products to friends is annoying.

The surveys and "studies" mentioned in the book are invalid in terms of how they were conducted; no marketing expert or sociologist would give them any credence.

The book appears to be a marketing tool for the author's own business, a franchise of Incubators which cost hundreds of dollars to join. Don't waste your money; the book itself is an advertisement for a poor product.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Launching my new life May 2, 2007

By Adryenn Ashley VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In Oct 2006 I attended the LIVE event in San Francisco hosted by Alison Covarubias (the San Francisco Incubator Leader). It was at that event that I made the decision to write the book I'd had in my head for years. And so, "Every Single Girl's Guide To Her Future Husband's Last Divorce" was born.

The idea behind Ladies Who Launch is unique and its about enhancing and developing the idea in your heart, not someone elses idea of what you should do. Beth and Victoria have created a sensational structure to take your creative or business ideas and bring them to life. I know that my life will be forever changed for the better because I had this experience.

For me, during the incubator, what I discovered was that women communicate and develop their creative ideas differently than men, and that I needed that hefty dose of estrogen and unconditional support to propell my idea forward and stay the course.

The incubator changed my life for the better in so many ways, not the least of which was showing me that my dreams were always within reach. Add to that the ongoing monthly meetings and personal mentoring by Alison Covarubias and there was no way I could fail.

For any woman thinking about starting her own business, or who has a creative idea, I highly recommend reading this book and signing up for an incubator near you!