Mom-turned-entrepreneur Victoria Pericon, owner of SavvyMommy.com, explains how she married motherhood with business ownership in order to become a better parent and a more successful professional.

By: MATT ALDERTON

Parenthood isn't always glamorous. Neither is business ownership, for that matter. One is jam-packed with crayons, spit-up and temper tantrums and the other with budgets, deadlines and meetings. Both demand long hours and both incite plenty of heartburn and infinite headaches. Still, both come bundled with enormous rewards.

Just ask Victoria Pericon. Every minute, five women start a business in the United States, according to the Center for Women's Business Research, and in 2002 she became one of them. Pregnant with her daughter Natalie—her first of three children—she decided to become a mompreneur. Equal parts mother and entrepreneur, mompreneurs are women who refuse to choose between having a family and a career. They want both, and they want them on their own terms.

"A common belief about motherhood and entrepreneurship that I have heard is that they don't mix, like oil and water," Pericon says. "However, I disagree. I am living proof that being a mother—of more than one child—and an entrepreneur does mix, and I am constantly trying to communicate that to others. There are thousands of dads out there working every day and no one thinks twice about working with them."

Un-deterred by popular opinion, Pericon set out to prove that mothers could take care of a business just as well as they could take care of a baby. So five years ago, armed with a mother's intuition and a bootstrapper's appetite, she started SavvyMommy.com, her award-winning online parenting magazine and Web site. Determined to succeed, she started a family and a business all at once—and was seven and a half months pregnant when she did it.

Becoming a 'Savvy Mommy'

Pericon grew up in New York, where she learned firsthand that if you want something, you've got to go out and get it. So when she got the idea for Savvy Mommy in 2002, she did just that: She went out and got it.

"Five years ago, there wasn't a parent—expectant or otherwise—who was reviewing juvenile products or services," Pericon says. "As I did my own search for the best maternity and baby products on the market, I found that there was a real need for a voice who could actually speak from the trenches and serve as an advocate for the purses of moms and wallets of dads."

That's not all that Pericon noticed, however. In her previous job, working 12- to 14-hour days in corporate America, she also noticed that mothers, particularly pregnant ones like her, were regarded as ineffective in the workplace. Their capacity for doing productive work apparently disappeared the moment that they began showing.

Irritated and obstinate, Pericon wasn't going to relegate herself to a life of uselessness. So she quit her job in the midst of her pregnancy to become the "Savvy Mommy," a name that she has since registered as a service mark and that she carries proudly as a badge of mompreneurial honor.

"I decided to officially become Savvy Mommy and never looked back," she says. It's a good thing, too, as thousands of American moms and dads would probably be lost without her.

Starting with her online magazine and Web site, where she writes unbiased reviews of products and services for parents and their children, Pericon has built a veritable empire of parenting expertise. She is a national spokesperson on parenting and business issues for companies such as Capital One, Burlington Coat Factory and KB Toys, and is a family correspondent for more than 400 television stations and almost 700 radio stations nationwide. What's more, she's a professional speaker, blogger and, of course, mother of three.

"I love the career I've created for myself," Pericon says. "Being able to set an example for other mompreneurs, and showing them that they can have it all, always gets me through the day."

Challenges and Rewards

Of course, neither small business ownership nor motherhood is 100 percent smooth sailing. Entrepreneurs and parents alike face enormous challenges, and the best of both can always find effective solutions.

For Pericon, the biggest challenge for her business was simply starting it. "I had an idea," she says, "but the decision to leave a career I was very comfortable in and start my own business was the scariest part."

Her solution to that very big—and very common—small business challenge? A can-do attitude that she says is so typical of native New Yorkers. "I just trusted myself, took a deep breath and did it."

Another challenge that Pericon faced was that of womanhood. "Women are under enormous pressure to be successful," she says, "both professionally and personally. Whether it is running your own business or running a family, women are expected to be great at doing it all."

Even so, Pericon insists that being a woman has helped her more than it has hindered her. "It takes the determination and attention to detail that a woman often has to truly succeed at entrepreneurship," she says. "Being a mother has affected my choice of profession, obviously, but I always knew I wanted to be my own boss. Becoming pregnant just helped me get to that point a little quicker."

Luck didn't hurt, either. Upon starting Savvy Mommy, Pericon was invited on a local news station's talk show to discuss the products that she liked; because New York is the No. 1 television market, other markets soon picked her up, too. "I'm the first to admit that I got a lucky break," Pericon says. "I've been very thankful for it. All of the experience I have now is because that first door opened to me."

How to Get Your MomBA

Pericon didn't start her business only for herself. She also started it for other mompreneurs. Savvy Mommy is a company, after all, but it's also an inspiration, an example for other moms who are hungry for entrepreneurial sustenance.

In fact, Pericon recently teamed up with Capital One Small Business in order to help mothers become business owners. Because moms are much too busy to get their MBA, she therefore developed the following tips to help them get their "MomBA":