The clever tactic 2 women are using to grow their startups into successful businesses

Margo Aaron and Pam Yang

RACHEL GILLETT - When Margo Aaron and Pam Yang met at a networking event in February, it took them less than five minutes to decide they should become “accountability partners.”

At the time the two were taking the same online course to help launch their marketing and branding businesses, and both felt tapped out going it alone.

Aaron, the founder of Argotics, and Yang, the founder of Dear Zero, were in need of someone to provide guidance and hold them to their commitments. They decided to try a new kind of mentorship to take their success to the next level.

“When we first met, we quickly discovered we were struggling with the same issues: how to scale our businesses,” Aaron explains to Business Insider. “We’d heard the term ‘accountability partner’ thrown around in our entrepreneurial circles, but weren’t too keen on the idea of being ‘set up’ randomly with someone.”

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How to start your own business as a woman: One Kings Lane founders' 11 top tips

Ali Pincus and Susan Feldman of e-commerce site One Kings Lane talk with Jenna Bush Hager about their success.

Jenna Bush Hager - I believe it was Beyoncé who said, "Who runs the world? Girls!"

Well she may not have said it first, but she definitely said it best! Though with statistics consistently reminding us that men still get paid more than women, it's not always so easy to believe Queen Bey.

So I was thrilled when I recently read new, promising headlines about women in the workplace. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women are starting businesses at one-and-a-half times the national average. They're starting nearly 1,300 businesses a day — almost double the average from one year ago.

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Don’t fear debt, embrace risk, and more advice for women business owners

Sarah Halzack - No matter how solid your idea is, it’s never easy starting–or growing– a small business.

On Friday, administration officials, investors and entrepreneurs gathered at The Washington Post to offer advice on fostering a thriving, woman-owned small business.

Here are some of the tactics they think could help you take your business to the next level.

Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis Berman, sisters and co-founders of Georgetown Cupcake:

When LaMontagne and Berman were looking to open a branch of their booming sweets shop in New York, they encountered a vexing–and typical–small business problem.

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Fulfillment, Not Family: Why Women Business Owners Really Start Up, And What's Still In Their Way

Emily Inverso - “There’s no such thing as perfect work-life balance.”

That’s how Darla Beggs, National Association of Women Business Owners’ National Chair, tells it. “I think some women business owners feel frustrated by this conversation because they feel trapped into chasing someone else’s view of success.”

But for most, an outsider’s opinion is no longer the measuring stick that matters. Women business owners are finding fulfillment on their own, according to a new study released today by NAWBO and Web.com. For 92% of female entrepreneurs, the ability to do something they are passionate about was the main driving force behind business ownership. The chance to be their own boss and the potential for higher earning power followed closely, but flexibility and family brought up the rear in this year’s survey.

“The conventional wisdom is women want work-life balance or flexible schedules,” says Web.com CEO David Brown. “Our research points out it’s really something different. Women want to have a passion and a strong interest to be engaged in that activity.”

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Women Are Owning More and More Small Businesses

GILLIAN B. WHITE - Owning your own business is often touted as the ultimate coup in the working world. You set your own hours, pursue projects you're interested in, and maybe work in your pajamas. Obvious challenges aside, it sounds like a pretty nice gig. Such jobs are largely enjoyed by men, who make up an estimated 71 percent of business owners in the U.S. But that might slowly be changing.

A report from the Institute of Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) shows that women are steadily increasing their presence in the world of small-business ownership. About 29 percent of America's business owners are women, that’s up from 26 percent in 1997. The number of women-owned firms has grown 68 percent since 2007, compared with 47 percent for all businesses.

The progress for minority women has been particularly swift, with business ownership skyrocketing by 265 percent since 1997, the report says. And minorities now make up one in three female-owned businesses, up from only one in six less than two decades ago.

Why have minority women had such an apparent breakthrough in the world of entrepreneurship? It’s partially a numbers game—in 1997 minority women represented such a small number of owners—less than one million—that even moderate growth would have likely helped them outpace the growth of the broader field of women-owners. But Jessica Milli, a senior research associate at IWPR, says that the characteristics of minority women who opt to open businesses may also play a role in the runaway growth.

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