Yes, You Can Do This! How Women Start Up, Scale Up, and Build The Life They Want

Book description

How women can "lean in" to entrepreneurship to create the life they want!

Claudia Reuter left a promising corporate career to raise her two young children but realized, when re-entering the workforce, that the gap in her resume looked like a gap in ambition—not a purposeful plan. Instead of leaning into a corporate career and fighting the structures and systems designed by and for men decades ago, or leaning out and giving up income, Claudia took a different path. That decision ultimately led to success in the corporate world and at home.

In Yes, You Can Do This!, Claudia shares her own reasons for starting a business and makes a call to action for women to consider entrepreneurship so that they can create businesses with the rules they want and change the playing field for others, making a significant impact in the world. More than a "how-to book" on building a business, Yes, You Can Do This! provides clear examples and practical resources to help others create the life they want through entrepreneurship.

In Yes, You Can Do This!, you'll learn:

  • How to develop and share your vision
  • How to deal with stereotypes and unconscious bias
  • How to leverage perceived weaknesses and turn them into strengths
  • How to balance life at high speeds and avoid burnout
  • How to cultivate the confidence to move from idea to creating a company with the culture and rules you want
Claudia provides women with an electrifying third career option: it’s not just "lean in" or "lean out," but startup and change the playing field for others in the process.

Praise for Yes, You Can Do This!

"It's rare to find a book on entrepreneurship that fuels your heart with inspiration and encouragement and your mind with practical, tangible things you can put into action immediately — but this is one of them. As a woman who has started three companies and been a senior team member of five startups, this is the guide I wish I'd read when I was starting out."
—Nataly Kogan, Author of Happier Now and founder of Happier, Inc.

"Combining compelling storytelling with practical, tactical advice, Reuter has created a manifesto for the next generation of female founders. Rooted in the research around gender and work, this is a must read for women looking to launch the next new thing."
—Jennifer McFadden, Associate Director of Entrepreneurial Programs, Yale School of Management

"A must-read for any woman considering taking the leap into entrepreneurship, You Can Do This brings together today's best thinking about women in the workplace with practical advice for creating your dream career and life - by starting a company. Whether you are just curious or ready to take the leap, this book is a great read and a valuable resource."
—Anna Barber, Managing Director, Techstars

"Claudia helps not just the female entrepreneur, but all entrepreneurs, find their footing in what can be an overwhelming whirlwind of starting a business. This book is not only inspiring and uplifting, but positively necessary for any woman looking to find success in the startup space!"
—Shira Atkins, Co-founder & CMO Wonder Media Network

"Stories of entrepreneurial success exist in abundance for men who receive 97.8% of venture funding and hold 95% of CEO roles. What is most inspiring about Claudia's book, making me want to shout from the rooftop, is that it is told from the perspective of an everyday woman who pushed hard through barriers, doubts, and setbacks that any entrepreneur would face. On top of all that, she overcame obstacles that are uniquely ours as women today. Claudia is now a standout among women, but with her book in hand, women who want to build a business to sca

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Introduction: Create the Life You Want by Starting Up
    1. How Did We Get Here?
    2. Why Not Lean In by Starting Up and Move Past the Binary Setup?
    3. The Privilege of Being in Charge
    4. So Let's Get in Charge and Lean-in to Entrepreneurship
    5. Win or Lose, How Do I Know You Can Do This?
    6. Why This Book Is for You
    7. How to Read This Book
  3. Section I: Get Ready to Start Up
    1. Chapter 1: So You Want More
      1. The Monthly Mentor Gathering
      2. Real-World Experiences and Opportunities
      3. Entrepreneurship as the Path Forward
      4. What's Holding You Back?
      5. My Journey to Becoming a Startup Entrepreneur
      6. What Starting Up as a Stay-at-Home Parent Looked Like
      7. A Manifesto for Women to Become Entrepreneurs, and a Playbook to Help
    2. Chapter 2: Reasons to Lead
      1. A Little More About Sophie…
      2. Why a Business Can Give You the Life You Want
      3. You Can Change the Rules
      4. The History of Gender Equity Is Still Recent
      5. Legislation Can't Be the Only Path Forward
    3. Chapter 3: Stop Believing Your Own Unconscious Bias
      1. Hannah at Work
      2. Making the Ask
      3. A Few Things About This Conversation
      4. How We Think and Act Is Conditioned
      5. How to Consider Unconscious Bias and Self-Advocacy as You Start Up
      6. I Didn't Always Have This Figured Out
      7. Why Affirmations Matter (Yes, You Can Is a Good Example!)
    4. Chapter 4: Your Perceived Weaknesses Are Your Hidden Strengths
      1. When It All Goes Wrong
      2. Let's Role-Play!
      3. You Really Are Perceived and Treated Differently
      4. Goal Setting as a Framework for Success versus Perfectionism
  4. Section II: Building for Scale and Avoiding the Traps: Debunking the Myth That Women Don't Think Big Enough
    1. Chapter 5: You Might Have the Next Big Thing
      1. We're All Potential Innovators
      2. Seeing What's Possible
      3. Identifying Types of Innovations
      4. Why Diversity of Viewpoints in Innovation Leads to More Innovation
      5. The Creator of Liquid Paper (White-Out)
      6. An Incremental Innovative Sales Strategy That Created a Different Way to Sell: Tupperware
      7. An Incremental Product Innovation That Created a Billionaire: SPANX
      8. A Disruptive Business Model Innovation: Rent the Runway
      9. Turning Reviews into a Viable Business Model
      10. A Makeup Artist Takes on an Entire Industry
      11. My Own Experience
    2. Chapter 6: Write Down Your Future
      1. Getting Back to Sophie…
      2. Standing Up for Your Business and Fighting Imposter Syndrome
      3. Making Your Vision Concrete
      4. Developing a Business Plan
      5. How My Business Plan Helped Me
    3. Chapter 7: Tell a Bigger Story
      1. Is Your Story Big Enough for Investors?
      2. Putting the Press Release Strategy to Work
      3. A Brief Example
      4. Own Your Ideas with Confidence
    4. Chapter 8: It Really Is Okay to Make Mistakes
      1. The Others Arrive
      2. How to Get Started on the Financial Plan
    5. Chapter 9: You Don't Have to Wait for Revenue to Ask for Funding
      1. Six Months Later…
      2. When Bootstrapping…
      3. Seeking Investors
  5. Section III: Lead and Operationalize
    1. Chapter 10: Empathy Is One of Your Biggest Assets
      1. As Starboard Grew
      2. Creating an Environment Where People Want to Work Starts with Knowing People
      3. Understanding Your Employees' Working Styles
      4. Little Things Lead to Bigger Success
      5. Working Together to Improve Outcomes and Customer Satisfaction
    2. Chapter 11: Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Teams
      1. When You Move Beyond the Startup and People Start to Silo into Positions
      2. Building for Organizational Success through Your Company's Mission
    3. Chapter 12: The Same Skills That Make You a Great Mom Make You a Great Manager
      1. Sophie's Day
      2. Managing the Small Corporation of Your Family
      3. Being a Mom Is Being a Manager
      4. Dismissing the Guilt of Being a Stay-at-Home Parent
      5. How Your Two-Year-Old Honed Your Management Skills Like No Other
    4. Chapter 13: You Are More Than Your Product or Company
      1. Letting Go to Move Forward
      2. Diffusing Fear and Creating Psychological Safety
    5. Chapter 14: Balance Life at High Speeds
      1. Running on Fumes
      2. My Story (and Cautionary Tale)
      3. What Balance Really Means
  6. Conclusion: You Really Can Start Up and Scale a Business: You Might Just Change the Rules in the ProcessConclusion: You Really Can Start Up and Scale a Business
    1. Sophie and Jake
    2. Hannah and Stan
    3. Maria and Jill
    4. How Will You Start Up?
    5. Overcoming the Scarcity Mindset: There's Enough for All of Us
    6. Valuing Women as Entrepreneurs
    7. Find, and Later Become, a Mentor
  7. Bibliography
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. About the Author
  10. Index
  11. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Yes, You Can Do This! How Women Start Up, Scale Up, and Build The Life They Want
  • Author(s): Claudia Reuter
  • Release date: February 2020
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119625605