I asked 17 of Atlanta’s most successful FEMALE entrepreneurs what it means to be an entrepreneur…

Last week I wrote a blog post where I asked 17 of Atlanta’s top entrepreneurs to finish the sentence, “To be an entrepreneur is to…”. Fortunately, I have many female entrepreneur friends that quickly pointed out that I included exactly zero female entrepreneurs on my list. And that’s really inexcusable. We have such a vibrant female entrepreneur community in this town that its often something I trumpet when talking about our strengths as a city. Shame on me for being so unthoughtful.

So I asked Jen Bonnett to let me redeem myself and together we got a list of 17 FEMALE entrepreneurs to answer the same question. Thanks, Jen!

To be an entrepreneur is to…

Jennifer Bonnett – To be an entrepreneur is to simply be a creative problem solver. – Tweet this quote

Moira Vetter – To be an entrepreneur is to be a fearless, optimist who sees things clearly in the distance that others cannot see…yet. – Tweet this quote

Mona Harty – To be an entrepreneur is to bet on yourself.  It’s getting up every day and wanting to have the ball in your hands with the game on the line. – Tweet this quote

Lauren Kiefer -To be an entrepreneur requires belief in yourself and what you’re doing.  It also requires a large supply of antacids and aspirin. – Tweet this quote

Genevieve Bos – To be an entrepreneur is to change things for the better. To introduce a business that solves problems, breaks down barriers and creates and delivers new value. Its to advocate a smarter, better and/or faster or revolutionary new way to create value. Its about listening to customers, being a visionary, seeing a new path. Its about having the energy, tenacity, collaboration and the right team to make the vision a sustainable reality. – Tweet this quote

Candace Mitchell – To be an entrepreneur is to be a visionary with a healthy disregard for the impossible who knows that success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out that solves problems for a wide number of people. (of course with grace, resilience, passion, and persistence). – Tweet this quote

Jacqui Chew – To be an entrepreneur is to embrace the journey of self discovery that goes along with “the changing the engine while the plane is in the air” parts. – Tweet this quote

Karen Robinson – To be an entrepreneur is to understand that the best ideas are often the ones yet undiscovered, and to spend your life finding them, fostering them, and bringing them to fruition. – Tweet this quote

Rachel Orston – To be an entrepreneur is to find comfort and even (gasp!) enjoyment in solitude, failure, frugality and being generally misunderstood. – Tweet this quote

Said Morson – To be an entrepreneur is being able to focus the big picture. Especially when the close up isn’t so bright. – Tweet this quote

Joan Herbig – To be an entrepreneur is to drive a stake through the heart of fear – getting comfortable being uncomfortable, making calls based on experience, gut and incomplete information and knowing in the end it’s better to make a bad call and later adjust than to make no call at all. – Tweet this quote

Jackie Hutter – To be an entrepreneur is to choose risk, challenge and continuous learning as opposed to plodding along in a secure career for which you trained 10+ years, in which you gained high regard, where you were obscenely well-paid, but in which you were excruciatingly bored. – Tweet this quote

Marci Troutman – To be an entrepreneur is to believe in yourself and with sword in hand, fight through the noise to create successes that are usually considered unattainable.  – Tweet this quote

Elisabeth Marchant – To be an entrepreneur is to be a visionary, one who imagines things that have never been done before. An entrepreneur is comfortable with highs and lows but never comfortable with the status quo. – Tweet this quote

Elli Kaplan – To be an entrepreneur is to recognize that the world is filled with all kinds of people and customers that don’t look like yourself.  And by recognizing that by broadening one’s lens to be more inclusive to those of a different gender, race, religion, and sexuality you learn more, build better products, build better companies and ultimately are more successful. – Tweet this quote

Caroline Van Sickle – To be an entrepreneur is to persevere no matter the circumstances. The life of an entrepreneur is not fair, but the truth is, if you can maintain solidarity in your vision, it doesn’t matter the nay sayers or the non believers say. You must tune them out and stay the course. – Tweet this quote

Allyson Eman – To be an entrepreneur is to have incredible passion, tenacity and drive to ensure the job gets done!  – Tweet this quote