Startup Power

Vicki LeMay is on an ambitious entrepreneurial mission after a decade in corporate America: To empower women business owners worldwide daunted by the startup phase of running a business.

But this venture isn't just a campaign slogan for LeMay, who previously held business strategy and management consulting roles for several brand name companies, including Nestle, Nikon and Reebok. Her passion is fueled, in part, from an alarming new Kauffman Foundation study that found women entrepreneurs receive $5 for every $100 of investment capital. One reason for the disparity, the study from the entrepreneur think tank found, was men begin with more money, which allows easier debt financing. The old-boys' investment community, moreover, has few women.

So LeMay, 37, sees not only a mission, but a business opportunity in Nap Time Startups, a Sarasota-based firm. The focus is to help women user-entrepreneurs who start businesses based on products they invented for their own use or their family. The company's name is derived from the idea that many entrepreneurs get their best work done when their kids take a nap — though LeMay, the CEO, doesn't have children.