Business

Leaning into $: Women-owned businesses are helping sluggish economy

(Shervin Iainez)

(
)

If you want a job done, call a woman — especially if that job happens to be creating jobs.

These days, it is women who are helping a sluggish economy.

In fact, “between 1997-2013, the number of women-owned firms is growing at 1 1/2 times the national average,” according to a new report from American Express.

One close-to-home example of this entrepreneurship is New York-based ’ZinePak, an entertainment publishing company started by Brittany Hodak and Kim Kaupe, both former ad-agency employees.

’ZinePak creates custom entertainment magazines devoted to musicians, celebrities, brands and entertainers.

Over the past two years, Hodak and Kaupe have sold about a million ’ZinePaks at Walmart, featuring boldface names like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, No Doubt and KISS.

These two women — neither of whom has reached her 30th birthday yet, by the way — employ four full-time staffers and several times that number of freelance writers, designers, proofreaders and fact checkers. They expect to add more employees this year.

“We love to be job creators and empower other females who work for us,” Kaupe says.

The two financed their venture with $60,000 of their personal savings. By last year, the company was recording some $2.6 million in revenue.

This year, it expects to bring in $4 million by selling numerous i-books — electronic versions of ’ZinePak publications that customers can read on their iPads. And business is good, the founders say.

Yet, Hodak says, when she and Kaupe were employees their idea for ’ZinePak was frequently dismissed by those who supposedly “knew better.”

She has advice for others who also have a dream they want to pursue: “Always believe in yourself even if nobody else does. We were told ’ZinePak was a terrible idea. And if we had believed them, then we wouldn’t be living our lives and doing what we love to do right now.”

Why are women doing well and creating jobs in this so-so economy?

The author of the report, Julie Weeks, an adviser to American Express, says part of the reason is women are obtaining higher education in large numbers.

The progress of women is “nothing short of remarkable,” Weeks said.

Fittingly, Weeks herself is the owner of a consulting firm, WomenAble.com.

The firm promotes — yes — female entrepreneurship.