Building a life on their own terms: These women found flexibility in entrepreneurship

“Having it all” is a loaded term. 

While it often refers to women who balance successful careers and happy families, it neglects the bigger picture. The fact is that even in double-income partnerships, women still absorb more of the household responsibility than men, spending 35% more time on caregiving and 142% more on housework.

Women who wanted careers and families were told to “lean in.” The burnout was real. In recent years, a backlash to hustle culture has led to a different approach to entrepreneurship. More than half of women prospective business owners* say a desire for a flexible work schedule is their motivation for starting a business. For men, this number drops to 38 percent.

Entrepreneurship can feel like a 24/7 job, especially in the early days. And barriers to funding still exist. Yet, many women who seek independence and flexibility are thriving at the helm of their own companies.

We spoke to three women who found balance between raising a family—and a business.

Home in time for dinner

Carrie Morey didn’t realize how much she disliked her investment industry job until she returned to work after the birth of her first child. 

She couldn’t stand the thought of being away from her daughter in a career that didn’t inspire passion. So she quit and became a stay-at-home mom. “That lasted for about six months before I was losing my mind,” Carrie says. 

Southern cooking was Carrie’s true passion. She knew running a restaurant wouldn’t work with her desired lifestyle and quickly dismissed the idea. “I didn't know that I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” she says, but realized that starting a different type of business would allow her to build the balance she needed.

In 2005, well before selling food on the internet became the norm, Carrie had her big idea: an online homemade biscuit company. She started Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit with the simple goal of being passionate about work and spending as much time as possible with her children.

“Nineteen years later, I would say that I 100 percent accomplished those goals,” she says.

Carrie made it work by scheduling around her kids’ needs. “I would work during nap times,” she says. “When we had production days, they were with me along for the ride.” She kept the business intentionally small in the beginning.

“It wasn't until our youngest went to kindergarten that I started thinking about how I could market the online business,” says Carrie. Luckily, this shift coincided with the launch of Instagram. It was the heyday of the platform when brands could gain traction with organic content alone. This allowed Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit to grow quickly—and just in time.

“If I was the only one working in the restaurant, I could drop my girls off at 7:30 and then be in the carpool line to pick them up.”

Carrie Morey

Carrie dreamed of a physical space where she could cook for her loyal customers and grow her brand. “The irony of this story is that I started Calliesbiscuits.com because I knew I didn't want the lifestyle of owning a restaurant,” she says. But Carrie created boundaries early, setting the restaurant’s hours around her kids’ school schedule.

“If I was the only one working in the restaurant, I could drop my girls off at 7:30 and then be in the carpool line to pick them up,” says Carrie.

As her kids have grown—her oldest is in college now—Carrie’s business has grown along with them, now producing more than 10,000 biscuits a day. The brand boasts a wholesale partnership with Whole Foods and a feature on the Today Show. 

What she’s the most proud of, though, isn’t her sales or press accolades. It’s that her kids could always count on having family dinner together.

Creating a legacy 

As an entertainment blogger, Shawna Jacobs had an exciting freelance career interviewing celebrities and writing film reviews. While her work was flexible and she chose her own opportunities, she was still dependent on others to offer them. The limit of that flexibility became clear in 2015. That year, her teenage daughter Essence was diagnosed with leukemia.

“It turned everything upside down,” says Shawna. “Most of my time was spent in the hospital.” 

While sitting by her daughter's bed, the opportunities started to dry up. It was impossible for Shawna to accept entertainment work, let alone get a 9-to-5 job. “I knew I had to take control of my life and my finances,” she says. “I knew I had to be my own boss.”

“I built my Shopify store sitting in a hospital room.”

Shawna Jacobs

Shawna noticed her daughter suffering the side effects of being hospitalized—bed sores and reactions to treatment and prescriptions. She began experimenting with formulations she already used on her own skin. A mix of shea butter and other natural ingredients was proving effective on Essence’s inflamed skin. 

Word moved through the hospital quickly. “Someone said, ‘You need to start a business,’” Shawna says. 

Shawna spent much of her time on Google researching how to bring her idea to life. If it could help her own daughter, surely there was a market. “I built my Shopify store sitting in a hospital room,” she says.

Sheair Butters launched from that very room, and Shawna was able to balance the needs of her daughter with those of the brand. 

Running her own business still consumed a lot of Shawna’s time. “If you don't like your 40-hour a week job, becoming an entrepreneur, you're probably going to be doing 60 to 80,” she says. But it’s how she was able to schedule those hours that mattered.

Shawna still finds herself working unusual hours today—sometimes at three or four in the morning. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. “[That’s when] I do my best work,” she says. She loves being able to choose the schedule she works, even if it includes the wee hours. 

Essence was hospitalized for two years before she recovered. In that time, Shawna built a brand inspired by a mother’s desire to give herself and her child a better life. “I want it to be her legacy,” she says.

Finding perspective the second time around

Cathryn Lavery’s story differs from that of Carrie and Shawna. While the founder of BestSelf Co. has found her groove these days, she initially turned away from entrepreneurship to focus on family. 

In 2022, Cathryn and her wife Emily welcomed their daughter. The life changing event compounded the burnout Cathryn was feeling at work. “I'd been doing it for so long and I was exhausted,” she says.

Even though Cathryn had a solid team, the responsibility of keeping them employed in a fragile economy was weighing on her. She decided to step back, selling the company to another firm that took on her whole team. She considered her options: what was her next move? Within two years of the sale, however, the firm that bought her brand announced it would be shutting down. 

Cathryn realized she still loved BestSelf Co. “We negotiated a deal for me to buy it back,” she says. This time, though, something had shifted. Her team was much smaller now, leaving more of the work to her.

“When I sold [the business], ChatGPT hadn't come out. I'd gotten really into it [since then],” Cathryn says. “There are a lot of mental load things that I realized I could get help with.” 

Using AI to boost her productivity was just one of the ways Cathryn could run a lean business the second time around. The other factor was being a mom. Rather than complicate her schedule, having a toddler in daycare is a forcing function for being efficient with time. “I drop her off at daycare and then I have to get everything done between nine to four,” she says.

The arrangement gets a boost from Cathryn’s relationship with Emily. She says entrepreneurship works best when one partner has a “normal job,” providing stability and health insurance. But Cathryn’s own flexible schedule means she can fill in if Emily gets a last-minute meeting request. 

For a seasoned entrepreneur running a successful company, Cathryn’s humbled by the experience of parenting. “I can't believe I used to give productivity advice to people who had kids when I had none,” she says.

Creating your ideal future

It’s never been a better time for women—for anyone—to take the leap and start a business. And when women do found their own companies, they’re succeeding.

Between 2019 and 2023 women-owned businesses thrived, with a 94% growth rate in number of companies over those run by men. They outpaced the growth of men-owned businesses by 253% in jobs created and 82% in revenue. And more women than men—54% vs 40%—run businesses on Shopify. 

“I think women are really good at this naturally because you're running a household and other people's lives,” says Carrie. “That lends to being a leader.” 

Flexibility is attainable in the post-grind world where “having it all” takes on a new meaning. Carrie, Shawna, and Cathryn’s stories remind us that entrepreneurship is a path to building a life on your own terms.

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*Results for the Gallup entrepreneur poll are based on responses from a survey of 46,993 U.S. adults (18+ years old) conducted online May 1-14, 2024. All participants are members of Gallup’s probability-based, nationally representative panel.