Empowering women
Innovate Marquette SmartZone supports entrepreneurs
Innovate Marquette SmartZone hosted Women in Entrepreneurship Thursday evening at Ampersand Coworkers in downtown Marquette. Shana Draugelis, pictured, creator of the blog “The Mom Edit” shares how she turned blogging into a career during the event. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)
Innovate Marquette SmartZone hosted Women in Entrepreneurship Thursday evening at Ampersand Coworkers in downtown Marquette. Pictures, members of the community listen as Draugelis speaks. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)
Innovate Marquette SmartZone hosted Women in Entrepreneurship Thursday evening at Ampersand Coworkers in downtown Marquette. Shana Draugelis, pictured, creator of the blog “The Mom Edit” shares how she turned blogging into a career during the event. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)
Innovate Marquette SmartZone hosted Women in Entrepreneurship Thursday evening at Ampersand Coworkers in downtown Marquette. Pictures, members of the community listen as Draugelis speaks. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)
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MARQUETTE -- Creating a space for women to get involved in entrepreneurship, talk to and learn from each other is the goal of the Women In Entrepreneurship series hosted by Innovate Marquette SmartZone.
"This is the second annual Women In Entrepreneurship event," said Rachel Barra, program manager for Innovate Marquette. "I'm actually hoping to turn it into maybe a quarterly event or semi-annual event. … There's support for every entrepreneur in our community, but women entrepreneurs are typically an underserved community within entrepreneurship. So it gives them a chance to get together and talk with like-minded people, learn from other women that have been there, done that -- maybe gain some tips and tricks of the trade."
This time, Innovate Marquette invited Marquette native Shana Draugelis, who told the story of how she created her nationally recognized blog, "The Mom Edit," and how she's made a career of it.
Draugelis shared what she has learned over the past decade, from mistakes to breakthroughs.
Her talk touched on how to treat entrepreneurship in the online realm. First and foremost, Draugelis had the "one big helpful thing" -- a service which she defined as "making fashion accessible and fun," especially to mothers.
Draugelis explained how she made sure to treat her blogging business as a real job from the beginning.
"You have to be consistent," Draugelis said, even if it meant hiring a babysitter so she could dedicate time to working on her blog.
She expanded on this approach, sharing the ways she rearranged her personal life to make her business more successful, like moving into a small house to have money to afford a nanny and moving to a cramped bedroom to turn the master bedroom into a studio.
"Think creatively about blending business with personal life," Draugelis said. "Be careful with how you spend your time and money, assess where time is best spent."
Expect more Women In Entrepreneurship events by Innovate Marquette SmartZone, which are hosted at Ampersand Coworking in downtown Marquette. In June it will also be hosting "Bytes with Bugsy," where Justin "Bugsy" Sailor will speak about different aspects of online marketing every Wednesday from noon-1 p.m.