The kitchen table tycoons

Judi Bevan says that new technology has at last created real liberation for women — by enabling them to run successful businesses from home

Kitchen table tycoons — the new buzz phrase to describe women who set up their own businesses from home — now account for £4.4 billion of sales a year, according to Professor Tim Leunig at the London School of Economics. Their numbers are rising rapidly; research by Barclays Bank showed that women started a fifth of all new businesses this year compared with just 13 per cent in 1996.

Technology has done for women what Germaine Greer’s rhetoric never could — delivered them genuine autonomy over their own livelihoods. Ten years ago, when my career-minded friends had children, they would soldier back to work a few months after giving birth, squeezing themselves wearily on to trains and buses after disrupted nights. Detailed menus and timetables of activities were left with nannies. They would stagger back through the door ten or 12 hours later for ‘quality time’. Or they would persuade their employer to let them work part-time, surrendering much of their pension and other benefits in the process.

Today, many of my friends have quit their jobs and used the experience gained in successful careers to become these kitchen table tycoons, running their own businesses from home, or close by, with the help of the internet. The chance to become seriously rich like Julie Pankhurst, the founder of Friends Reunited, is clearly a spur, but the main attractions are autonomy and flexib-ility. Women who head their own businesses can kiss office politics goodbye and set their own working hours. They have the freedom to down tools to watch a rugby match or a carol service. Night owls can work while the children sleep.