I attended the first ever Startup Princess Conference on Sat. and was pleasantly surprised at what it turned out to be. I was also impressed with the quality of women that were there. So many already successful with their businesses and also women who are in the process of developing an idea for a business. Kelly Anderson, founder of Startup Princess (www.startupprincess.com), put together the event wonderfully.

These are some of the highlights:

The two guest speakers were Rachael Herrscher from Today’s Mama and Kristen Lamb from Design It Boutique. One of my favorite things Rachael said was that we, as entrepreneurs, should be “risk friendly”. An entrepreneur is not afraid of being poor, making sacrifices, hard work, investing into something they believe in, and lets not forget, doing a whole lot of research. This definitely takes a certain kind of person. Rachael also said, “the best thing about being an entrepreneur is that there isn’t anyone telling you how, when and where you can make money”. In 2006, Today’s Mama received more than a million hits on their website and is now one of Utah’s fastest growing companies.

The topic Kristen Lamb, of Design It Boutique, gave was “Do you need it? Can you afford it? Can you do without it?”. She said these three questions are important when deciding to start a business or not. Kristen was Mrs. Utah 2003, had one of the most successful  spa distributing businesses in the United States and now owns Design It Boutique. Her 6000 sq. ft. showroom in the basement of her house is worth seeing, and like she says, “worth the drive too”.

Kelly Anderson hopes to have another Startup Princess conference in the spring of 2007 and I strongly suggest that if you want to be surrounded by inspiring, fun, women entrepreneurs, you make an effort to go.