Preparing Daughters for Entrepreneurship
I was in the middle of the dot com crash and had gone from the heady days of preparing my company for an initial public offering to the disheartening task of cutting a massive cash burn rate. The company had chewed up thirty million dollars in the race to be first to market in our chosen space. Not only were we out of cash, but we owed millions more in unpaid bills and the investors were refusing to invest additional capital. I felt the crushing weight of 335 employees in a dozen offices and the thirty-five Fortune 500 customers that hung in the balance.
We also need to raise our daughters to be creative thought partners that can provide their husbands with the necessary input to help him achieve his best.
As I sat in the den of my home agonizing over how to make a payroll of approximately one million dollars, I was also painfully aware that my personal net worth had gone up in smoke along with the market crash. I looked up as my wife walked in, pregnant with our third child. I explained to her that I might have to shut the company down, which would mean bankruptcy for us because I had personally guaranteed most of our leases.
Without hesitation she walked over to me, put her arms around me and replied “That’s okay, Honey. I trust you and God to get us through this and, worst case, we can just start over. Please tell me what I can do to lighten your burden.” No sweeter words were ever uttered by a wife in the midst of a struggle that would potentially turn her world—and comfortable lifestyle—upside down.
The Contentious Wife
Men often hold back from risk because of their wives’ fear of uncertainty. Since many of us are preparing our sons to be entrepreneurs (see “An Educational Framework for Training Entrepreneurs" Homeschooling Today, March/April 2007), we also need to prepare our daughters to be able co-laborers with their future entrepreneurial husbands. This training should include preparing them to deal with risk as well as teaching them contentment, creative thinking and instruction in skills that will contribute to the economy of the home and support their husband’s vision.
As Jesus sent the disciples out, he tested their faith with his instructions to not carry any money belt, bag or shoes (Luke 10:3-4) and later, just prior to his crucifixion, Jesus confirmed the lesson by reminding them that when he sent them out they did not lack anything (Luke 22:35). In a similar way, we need to galvanize our daughters’ faith into an unshakeable belief that, although life will hand them plenty of uncertainty, God (and the husband He provides them) will see them through.
Unhappy is the man whose wife is not content with his provision, which can lead to much contention. There are no fewer than five warnings in Proverbs about the contentious wife or woman. We need to raise our daughters to joyfully accept their circumstances (as Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11–13) and to thankfully support their husband in his ability to provide, whether feast or famine.
We also need to raise our daughters to be creative thought partners that can provide their husbands with the necessary input to help him achieve his best. Creative wives can contribute mightily with thrifty homemaking, gardening, animal husbandry, and sewing skills that enable them to manage a home without adding stress to the family budget.
Finally, we should teach our daughters about business. One homeschool father I know is teaching his daughters accounting which is a wonderful skill that a wife can contribute to her husband’s business. Other useful skills include design, sales, marketing, and customer service.
The Fruit of Her Hands
How do we teach skills to our daughters in a protected environment? One opportunity arose when my in-laws announced a large garage sale in their nearby upscale home. My creative wife kicked into high gear with a project to teach our young daughters an entrepreneurial lesson by selling breakfast to the early morning crowd of bargain hunters.
The first lesson was to help them forecast the potential demand for various breakfast items. The next lesson was to have them put their own personal capital at risk for the raw materials. Then there were production lessons of preparing the products and logistics lessons in transporting and vending the finished goods, both hot and cold.
The marketing lessons included the strategic placement of their display and their pricing menu. And of course there were the sales and customer service aspects. To my amazement, they were very persistent little saleswomen. One time I had to wave off an eager daughter as she doggedly followed a woman around the garage with multiple offers. Later, as the woman was walking back to her car past the girls’ stand, she finally broke down and bought a coffee for the road, crystallizing a lesson in persistence and placement.
The girls marked down their menu in an effort to exhaust their highly perishable inventory of coffee and donuts. They learned about disposing of obsolete inventory when they bartered with me to buy their unsold juice and their financial lessons included calculating unit margins, breakeven, and accounting for their revenue and expenses.
Finally, as we tore into the leftover donuts, we determined that they had made enough money to buy one baby doll each, but what mattered most were the lessons they were learning.
I thank God for my dear bride that has stood beside me through various trials, including the floundering dot com, which, by the grace of God, went on to survive, became profitable, and was eventually sold. This same wonderful woman is helping me to raise our daughters to look forward to being Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 keepers at home, home educators, and able helpmeets for their future husbands.