America's best home businesses

By Rich Sloan, StartupNation

One fact jumped out this year as we reviewed thousands of contestants in the 2009 StartupNation Home-Based 100 competition:

Home businesses are all the rage despite the tough economy.

It's estimated that 150 million people in North America reap the benefits of running a home-based business. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than half of all businesses make home their HQ.

As we delved deeply into the lives and missions of the home-based business owners in our contest, we found these entrepreneurs to be an unselfish bunch.

We don't say that because they baked us muffins and massaged our feet during the judging process. We say it because these folks saw areas where consumers and businesses were underserved, misrepresented or neglected, and they decided to do something about it.

Of course, they'd hoped that meeting those needs would allow them to make some money, too.

Problem solvers

For some, their business adventures at home grew out of a need of their own -- for a product or service no one else seemed to offer. Take, for example, Haralee Weintraub's need for moisture-wicking pajamas to accommodate the night sweats she experienced while undergoing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. Her market research didn't turn up much except for the startling fact that she wasn't alone in her predicament. So she started her clothing business, Haralee.com.

For others, businesses grew out of the frustration they heard from family members or friends. With his background in health care and medical services, George Mavromaras often saw doctors and Spanish-speaking patients struggling to communicate, sometimes in emergency situations. First he improved his own Spanish. Then he started Mavro and developed a mobile software program that translates doctors' yes-or-no questions for patients.

2009's Home-Based 100 winners have built home businesses around simple ideas. From cloth diapers to backyard chicken coops to eco-friendly apparel, their offerings seem to be born of a refusal to settle for anything less than perfect. And they're reaching customers across the globe. But "going global" is a byproduct, not the core motivation, for most of the contestants we spoke to. Most eschew the highflying Richard Branson path. They simply want to see impact and change.

Defying the recession

In the Recession Busters category, most of our winners felt so strongly about the needs they'd identified that they started home businesses smack in the middle of this abysmal economic environment. In fact, seven of the Top 10 Recession Buster businesses are less than a year old. Bebe Dulce founder Claire Eads knew there would always be consumers in need of baby gifts. Banquet Tables Pro founder Alex Steiner felt confident there would still be sufficient need for his banquet furniture. Despite working in a somewhat recession-sensitive sector, he was right. His business has grown in the past year, and he anticipates there will be an even greater need for his services when the economy comes inching back.

Like the Recession Busters, many of the winners in the Top 10 Boomers Back in Business category didn't let a down economy stop their home businesses either. Whether because they've been laid off or because they're being forced to work into their retirement years, many leveraged previously developed skills and current passions to start their own businesses. Now acting as their own bosses running their own businesses, they wouldn't have it any other way.

Take Larry Morton, who after 34 years in speech language pathology didn't have enough money saved up to retire. Instead of plugging away with his chin to his chest, the then-56-year-old made a dramatic career shift and launched his home-based Jeep enthusiast site, 4 the Love of Jeeps.

While not all of our winners have Web-based businesses like Morton's, they're definitely all spending a significant amount of time online. From networking and blogging to Tweeting or e-mail marketing, social media are now primary business tools.

In fact, so much emphasis is placed on social media by home-based entrepreneurs that this year we created a new Top 10 category: Savviest in Social Media. We were blown away by submissions, filled with tales of Facebook successes or use of LinkedIn and small-business-only sites such as StartupNation.

Michelle Greer uses social media not only for her home-based marketing company, SimpleSpeak Media, but also for her clients. She's won them national exposure on several occasions through her creative use of social-marketing media.

Video: How a millionaire entrepreneur got started

Another business trend that seems to have passed the tipping point is the focus on sustainable businesses, whether they be eco-friendly products and services or environmentally conscious practices and procedures. The popularity of the Top 10 Greenest business category showed that there was even more interest this year about going green to make green.

April Femrite was one of those contestants. Wanting to do her part for the planet and seeing an opportunity in the $1 billion organic-apparel market, she launched home-based company Naturally Bamboo. Not only does Femrite have an eco-friendly product, she also uses environmentally conscious business practices: Naturally Bamboo is building an entirely domestic supply chain.

Underserved markets

Even in our categories that celebrate the unique and quirky -- Most Innovative, Most Glamorous, Wackiest, Yummiest and Most Slacker Friendly -- our winners simply wanted to make a difference in markets that are underserved. Joseph Hansen built a service to optimize people's online dating profiles. Stephvanie Wynn felt black women deserved an international pageant of their own. Marsha Hill had the cure for families suffering from lice. Art Weingaertner decided to light up people's appetites with delectable salsas and rubs, and James Jowsey wanted to share his passion for the Jimmy Buffett toes-in-the-sand lifestyle with others seeking the same good life.

As exciting as this annual announcement is for us at StartupNation, it's also a dreaded time of year. Though we're thrilled to be able to give due recognition to the 100 winners of the annual Home-Based 100 for 2009, we're always haunted by the thousands of contestants whose businesses were also extraordinary but simply didn't make it into the Top 100. To those we say, you're in good company, and we hope this year's list inspires you to take your business to the next level.

Published Nov. 6, 2009