More mums working from home amid the rise of the 'mumpreneurs'

HER husband may have raised his eyebrows when she decided to turn her back on a six-figure salary to become a life coach, but Kathryn Hocking had no doubt it was the right decision.

HER husband may have raised his eyebrows when she decided to turn her back on a six-figure salary to become a life coach, but Kathryn Hocking had no doubt it was the right decision.

And now through her business Reverie Coaching, she is sharing her knowledge and experience with other women keen to be their own boss.

Ms Hocking, 32, is part of a trend of mothers - dubbed mumpreneurs - who are leaving the corporate world in favour of starting their own businesses, often while raising children.

"The term 'mumpreneurs' is generally used for mums that are often at home with their kids, running a business, often online, or it may be a craft type business," Ms Hocking says.

"But equally there is this other stream of mumpreneurs that have had professional corporate careers for probably 10 years, they've then gone and had kids, they've realised that the corporate 9am to 5pm work is really not going to help them be the mum they want to be for their kids so they're now finding ways they can create a business online using their professional skills but still be at home with their kids.

"I think a lot of mums go back to work and realise there's got to be more to life than this working so hard, feeling guilty when you need to take a day off to look after your child and not being able to have that time with your children as they're growing up.

"I think people are just realising that there is actually some other alternatives."

A 2011 study by BankWest found that women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men. Ms Hocking believes the cost of childcare and the availability of technology are two of the key factors behind the rise of the mumpreneur.

"For some mums, depending on the job they had prior to having kids, going back to work almost costs them money," she says. "Technology is another huge thing; when I was growing up my mum had friends that were trying to start a kids clothing business and it just didn't get anywhere, but if they had been doing that in this day and age they would have been able to set up their own website, have a page on Facebook, go to markets; there would have been so much more opportunity for a business like that.

"These days an online business is at everyone's fingertips because the technology makes everything really quite easy and quite inexpensive to set up."

Ms Hocking describes herself as a business coach, mentor and strategist. She works with clients to develop strategies that are going to improve their business and also runs a series of e-courses, delivering education for mumpreneurs online.

Ms Hocking started developing Reverie Coaching 18 months ago while working full-time in her old job.

In January she made the bold decision to quit her lucrative corporate job to focus on her own business. But her fears were short lived, as Reverie Coaching is already earning her about $130,000 a year. "It's very exciting and there is just no reason why people can't do this but they just need the right training and the right education," she says.

"Quitting my job in procurement in January of this year was a very scary decision because we've got the big mortgage ... but it was the best decision I have made. I think my husband thought I was going crazy ... suddenly I said to him, I want to go and study life coaching and I plan to quit my job."

But Ms Hocking's hard work has paid off, with a better work-life balance her reward.

"These days I work from about 8am to about 4pm, but I don't work nights, don't work weekends and I used to commute to work for about 1.5 hours a day so I have more time to spend with my daughter," she says. "And if I want to take the day off and just take her to the zoo I can. I'm my own boss."

Mumpreneur Krisha Clark, who has two children, has worked with Ms Hocking to develop her business Eco Squeezies, which sells reusable, eco-friendly, food pouches.

Ms Clark's eldest child's penchant for food like yoghurt was the inspiration for the product, which she started developing last December. It is now available for preordering online.

"He liked things like yoghurt (pouches) and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be awesome if you could have a product like that that you could fill with your own product, it'd be so much cheaper and instead of throwing it away you could actually keep it and reuse it again," she says.

"I guess I just wanted the freedom to work from home and not to necessarily have to put the kids into childcare all the time and if they were sick I could still continue to work and still be providing for my family financially as well as looking after my boys at home."

Keen to help other budding mumpreneurs, Ms Hocking has organised a two-day business conference Mumpreneurs on Fire to be held in October.

"It's going to be a really great learning event but also a good networking event," she says.

"It is trying to get the mumpreneur out of the house, out learning some key business skills but also networking with other people in the same city and realising they're not alone and there's support out there for them to grow their business."

Details: mumpreneursonfire.com