For the past 10 years I’ve worked in an office environment. Some were better than others, and all came with their share of office politics, interesting personalities, and pleasant and unpleasant dynamics. Now I work from home, until we get our office space set up for Work It, Mom! There are things I love about it but there are things that I miss about being in an office.

Today what I miss is distraction that is easily attained in any office environment, just by walking over to a colleague or chatting with co-workers in the hallway.

This weekend kicked my butt, in many senses of the word, and I’m glad it’s over. But as I sat down to start my work this morning, I couldn’t focus -I knew I needed to do the weekend-download-chit-chat before I could get some work done. But there is no water cooler to walk over to and no co-worker in the next office to distract.

We had some great discussion about the benefits of working in a corporate environment on Work It, Mom! last week. (Check out Kathy’s blog post and Florinda’s article.) I’d love to hear your thoughts on which you prefer - working at home or in the office - as well as any tips on how to simulate some of the great things about being in an office when you work from home.

Are you an entrepreneur or are thinking of starting your own business?

Don’t count on venture capital dollars to get you funded. While women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men in the US, a tiny percentage of venture capital money is actually funding these businesses - according to Forbes, less than 3% of venture capital dollars are invested in women-founded businesses.

Wow.

Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur this should cause your jaw to drop.

During my 5 years in venture capital I spent quite a bit of time thinking about why more women entrepreneurs were not getting funded. While we had some companies in our portfolio that were being run by women as CEOs - and by the way, those companies were, with one exception, in the top third of our companies, based on performance - we did not fund one company that was founded by a woman entrepreneur. I rarely saw women founders come to pitch to us and when I got involved with a few organizations focused on helping women entrepreneurs get funding, we oten had trouble finding great companies to connect with vcs.

Why is this going on?

In my opinion, there are two main reasons:

Reason #1: There are very few women in venture capital. In fact, less than 10% of partners and principals (i.e. people who can make investment decisions) in venture capital are women. Go ahead and name another industry that is this pathetic in this respect. And the reason this matters is because it is part of our human nature to connect with and network with people who are more like us. So if there are few women in venture capital controlling investment dollars it is extremely difficult to women entrepreneurs to get access to that capital.

Reason #2: Some (many?) women entrepreneurs do not want to raise venture capital. Many are starting service-based businesses that don’t need this type of funding and some want to maintain more control over their business (which does not happen often if you take venture money). The two founders of Work It, Mom! - Victoria and myself - spent years in senior positions in venture capital and certainly have access and networks for it. But for now we’re choosing not to go that route; we want to bootstrap our business and to build it into a real company before we even consider raising lots of money. In other words, we want to do it at our own pace.

I am sure there are other reasons, but after a lot of thinking, these are my top two. If you’d like to read some lively discussion on this topic, check out this post by Fred Wilson, one of the top VCs in New York (read the comments - some interesting perspectives!)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so please post a comment. If you are an entrepreneur are you planning to raise money? Why or why not? Do you feel that as a woman you are at a disadvantage?

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P.S. I found this article after I wrote this post, but if you want some much smarter people’s opinion on why so few women receive venture (and angel, accoding to this article) funding, check it out.

For years before Victoria and I launched Work It, Mom! I worked in the little-known world of venture capital. My job was to find great start-up companies, invest money in them, and then help them grow. (Well, dealing with personalities and egos of other investors was a big part of my job also, but that’s a whole other blog post.) My favorite part of the job was getting to know the amazing entrepreneurs that started these companies - I found them to be some of the most creative, courageous, hard-working, and interesting people I’ve ever met. It always amazed me how they managed to keep building their companies despite tremendous difficulties and challenges.

I had lunch with one of these entrepreneurs the other day and when I told him that I’ve started my own company, he smiled. When I asked why, he said that he is glad that I will finally understand first-hand what he has been going through. “If you didn’t know how tough it was for me to do what I did, then I know you will now,” he said.

Doing is understanding. This is my mantra for today.

Launching Work It, Mom! and working to grow it, to get the word out there about it, to make sure we have the best offering for our members, has been the most thrilling and difficult thing I’ve personally ever done. (Funny, it’s almost exactly what I say about becoming a parent.) We’re working 20 hours a day, things don’t always go as we’d like and as with all start-ups in early stages the climb is most definitely uphill. And then, once you mix in the usual entrepreneurial dose of doubt, pressure, and fear of failure, the climb gets even steeper.

I know many of our members run their own businesses and if you’re one of them, this post is for you - as well as all the other entrepreneur moms out there. You are amazing, strong, and incredibly gutsy and you should be really proud of what you do. Now I know how hard you are really working.

Doing is understanding.

(If you’re an entrepreneur, I’d love to hear from you - share your experience and thoughts by posting a comment!)