A Year in the Life Series: Kristen Brown: Great Wins this Month but Finances Sometimes Get in the Way

Last month I introduced you to Kristen Brown, our busy mother whose husband died unexpectedly from a heart attack. (Read her first post here).

Kristen has been busy attempting to build two companies. The first, a health supplement product, Happy Hour Effect, LLC, has shown a lot of promise this month. Says Kristen in her journal:

Happy Hour Effect will be the official sponsor of the TMG Luxury Oscars Suite, a media and celebrity event in Hollywood held the week before the Oscars where invited guests will have the opportunity to directly interact with showcased products.

In addition, the product has gained the attention of the largest health supplement retailer in the world who wants to carry the product.

I will be speaking and exhibiting at the Body Mind Life Expo.  And I have scored some radio and newspaper media coverage.

With the ups, though, have come the downs. Mainly these are of the monetary type.

But these wins haven’t yet translated into measurable sales dollars to earn me a living because they haven’t been broadcast yet or I don’t have the money to finance additional custom production of the product for the retailer until my current inventory sells. 

As a single/widowed mother, Kristen of course has to take into account the fact that she is the sole breadwinner of the family. If she invests everything she has and something goes wrong, she is out money - money that would be used to raise her daughter and pay the bills. Once upon a time, when Kristen was younger, this wasn't as important.

I need to provide a good home for my daughter since I am a widow mom - so I can’t scrape by and exist on ramen noodles like I would have done in my single days.  I need to decide if I risk my own financial investments and home to get a small business loan, seek out investors or go back to corporate America for a steady paycheck again.

Taking an outside corporate job is not something Kristen wants to do right now. This would mean, of course, pulling back time from her own company, which she feels is just about ready to succeed. Going to work full time means focusing energy on the corporate job and not the other work she has going on. If this happens, of course, her company may not make it. Says Kristen:

Between my business, my speaking and writing and my Master’s degree in progress, it would be nearly impossible to make it all work if I have to get a job working for someone else again.  It feels like I am on the verge of success – people love the product and my story.  I just need the awareness and some additional funding to take it to the next level. 

This is often a concern of women who have quit full time jobs to pursue other interests in hopes of making a profitable business work. Being swept up in a 9-5 position takes most of the daily energy and, of course, what is left needs to be distributed between family, home, spouse, friends, and tasks that need to be completed outside of the workday. How can one concentrate on yet another endeavour if they are working full time?

In addition, as a single mother Kristen not only needs to make the money to keep the family above water, but she is the sole caregiver as well. Her time away from work must be focused on her daughter. If she is working 9-5 and trying to get a business going, how will this work?

And yet, as Kristen asks, how can she make her company a full time job without the funding it would take to get to the next level?

Next week we will be discussing these issues with a variety of experts, since they are those that many mothers in business face during the start up period.

In the meantime, if you would like to offer some comments, ideas, suggestions, or support, send us a comment!