Description: With a new baby, little money, but lots of determination and drive, Rebecca Matthias started a business out of her home some eighteen years ago. Today, her company, Mothers Work -- which includes the retail outlets Mimi Maternity, Motherhood, and A Pea in the Pod -- has grown to become a multimillion-dollar maternity clothing empire.

Searching for an idea to build a new company around at the time of her first pregnancy, Matthias discovered it was impossible to find maternity clothes suitable for the office. Realizing other professional women were in the same boat, Matthias embarked on a mail-order business selling maternity clothes. The initial response was staggering, and Matthias's company was on its way. Over the next few years, after a series of setbacks and advances as Matthias and her husband grappled with managing accounting, sales, inventory, and financing, the company gradually took off. What they discovered was that, unlike new mothers of a generation earlier, women were staying in the workforce throughout their pregnancies. The shift was a revolution in the workplace, and Mothers Work was supplying the uniforms.

In the course of describing how she built her business, Matthias inspires readers with her can-do attitude and teaches them the hard-fought lessons and nuts-and-bolts advice she learned about how to research an idea, test it in the market, raise money, deal with employees, taxes, bankers, cash flow, marketing, franchising, and more. Candid, inspiring, and deeply personal, "You Can Do It!" offers a three-dimensional blueprint for every woman -- and man -- who dreams of successfully starting a company.

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