March is Women’s History Month. During the entire month from Mar 1-Mar 31 we highlight women who have made a difference in history and we salute the numerous amount of women making an impact in their communities, their nation, and the world. Below we will highlight some of the top businesses founded by women.
- Birchbox= In 2010, with the goal of improving the beauty industry and making it more customer-friendly Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna co-founded Birchbox. In 2012, Barna made Forbes’ “30 under 30” list of marketing and advertising influencers. Initially, Birchbox was a subscription service for women looking to try new beauty product samples, but the company expanded in 2012 with the addition of Birchbox Man.
2. Flickr= In 2002, Caterina Fake, who had worked as an art director for Salon.com, founded the popular photo-sharing website. Flickr was actually an offshoot of a game Fake that was developed with her husband at the time Stewart Butterfield. Even though the game quickly went bust, the photo-sharing technology they designed was a hit. Fake and Butterfield sold Flickr to Yahoo for a reported $35 million in cash and stock options in 2005.
3. Liquid Paper= In the 1950s,Bette Nesmith Graham began using white, water-based tempera paint and a thin paintbrush to cover her typing errors. She sold her first bottle, originally called Mistake Out, in 1956. Graham later patented the must-have office product and renamed it Liquid Paper. Graham started with just 100 bottles a month in sales, Liquid Paper was selling 25 million bottles a year when Graham sold it for a reported $47.5 million in 1979. She passed away six months later at age 56.
4. The Body Shop= In 1976, Anita Roddick started The Body Shop in England, to create a livelihood for herself and her two daughters while her husband was traveling the globe. The concept of the bath and body caught on, and within six months was able to open a second shop. She soon launched The Body Shop’s franchise program, which has opened stores all across the world. The store company went public in 1984 and in 2006, 30 years after its founding.Roddick sold The Body Shop to L’Oréal for a reported $1.4 billion.
5 .Ruth Chris Steakhouse= In 1965,Ruth Fertel mortgaged her house to buy a little restaurant, Chris Steak House, on the corner of Broad and Ursuline in New Orleans. A fire ravaged the restaurant in 1976, forced her to open in a new location under a new name, Ruth Chris Steak House. During that same year, Fertel agreed to let Tom Moran, a regular customer, open the first Ruth’s Chris franchise location. Today, there are more than 130 company and franchise-owned locations around the globe. Fertel sold her majority interest in the chain to private equity firm Madison Dearborn in 1999 for an undisclosed amount. In 2002, at age 75 Fertel passed away.
6. Cisco= Sandra Lerner founded what would become technology giant Cisco alongside her then-husband Len Bosack, after the pair was unable to email each other from offices in different buildings while working together at Stanford University. Lerner’s desire to connect with her husband led to them designing the multi-protocol router — the platform that launched Cisco in 1984. Lerner was eventually ousted from the company in 1990, but reportedly walked away with $170 million from the sale of stock options. She went on to start Urban Decay.
7. Bark& Co.= Carly Strife co-founded Bark & Co. with Matt Meeker, Henrik Werdelin, who were brought together by their love of all things pups. The trio launched Bark & Co’s first product, BarkBox, with little thought as to how popular it was going to be, according to the website.
8. Slideshare= Sinha co-founded the popular presentation-sharing platform, company with CTO Jonathan Boutelle in 2006, a year after launching another project called MindCanvas. Before launching SlideShare, Sinha was doing lab work after earning a Ph.D. in cognitive neurospychology, when she realized her passion for web technology and co-founded another company called Uzanto. SlideShare was acquired by professional social networking giant LinkedIn in May 2013 for a reported $118.75 million and now has more than 16 million registered users.
9. Proactive= Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields felt strongly about finding a better treatment for acne because both of them had lived with it at some time in their lives. After starting separate practices, the pair noticed the problems acne posed for people of all ages. During a five-year period, Rodan and Fields developed a comprehensive acne skin care system, Proactive Solutions which combines acne medicine with soothing botanicals to create an acne-fighting system designed to leave skin smooth, clean and clear.
10. Build A Bear= After shopping with a 10-year-old who questioned why she couldn’t just make her own stuffed toy when she couldn’t find one she liked. Clark turned the idea into a business when she opened the first Build-A-Bear Workshop in St. Louis in 1997. Today, there are more than 400 stores worldwide have helped people create more than 100 million furry friends.
