This is part of Folksonomy's Featured Female Entrepreneur of the Week series of interviews.

Ponn Sabra is the owner of EmpowerWomenNow, a community of global women entrepreneurs. And author of best-seller, "Empowering Women to Power Network." Get your copy here at Amazon today.

What will it take to encourage more women to start companies?

I believe it is critical that women have a strong sense of personal empowerment. Each woman entrepreneur must know whole-heartedly that she has the ability to reach her fullest potential in her own personal, professional, financial, and social life.

As a female entrepreneur, you have to understand that you are your business. You need the confidence and inner-strength to survive the pressures and trails that come along with managing your business and family's health and well-being.

While mentors are critical to this process; self-empowerment, self-actualization and self-worth must lie at the core of each and every self-sustaining female entrepreneur to achieve the most coveted status of become a "woman business owner", when she completes her 43rd month of being in business.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle for women in today's world to start companies and how can we address that problem?

I believe the #1 obstacle holding back women is the lack of business confidence.

Lack of confidence creates unnecessary skepticism, the inability to take calculated risk at the most opportune time, and the inability to make difficult business decisions when critical which results in major loss of valuable opportunities.

EmpowerWomenNow has been running an incredible offer with PRWeb, the #1 online visibility press release distribution center. I'm very perplexed by the data generated for the past three weeks. Male entrepreneurs read of the news, registered immediately, participated, shared the news with their readers, and actively supported the program by sharing testimonials and being active members on our blog, up to today. Unfortunately, I've seen women come and go, read the page, leave, come back to read the same page, and still may not even sign-up. If they do sign-up, they haven't shared the news with their lists or readers. Many of my personal colleagues who know the value of PRWeb's work, I had to call, personally email, send reminders, etc. to have them claim their own free $200 press release.

So, how can we address this confidence issue? Through Meaningful Mentors & Astute Students.

Another solution to enable women entrepreneurs with the necessary start-up assistance is through government support and policy change that supports women entrepreneurship. A positive financial, social, and economical change can occur. The best example of this is the United States Women Business Centers that incorporates networking, mentoring, and access to business tools and resources for low income women.

Low on cash for a much needed business coach? Run to your local SCORE.org office today. Retired business owners offer assistance for free.

f cash flow was not an issue and you had had the choice to do any kind of startup, what would it be?

EmpowerWomenNow strives to be the top international women entrepreneur online resource center that offers free help, tips, tools, resources, mentoring and networking. The ultimate goal is to offer tools that can be made open source for all women entrepreneurs across the world. Many of the tools I utilize today are free and accessible via the web. Unfortunately, everything is disjointed and not available in one central space.

I would love to help women entrepreneurs have access to implement as many of the internet marketing techniques that my colleagues and I presently use that are necessary to building a profitable online business structure. I envision virtual remote assisted online business services and applications will be used to help jump-start any female entrepreneur willing, able and ready to utilize the internet for their business growth. I see financial growth can be gained by applying an affordable fee for female entrepreneurs in 1st world countries so we can ultimately donate these services to female entrepreneurs in 2nd and 3rd world countries.

I agree with previous interviewee Tara Hunt's statement, "I would also want to throw more time behind open source and women entrepreneurial projects. That being said, I'm not a developer. But I do love working with developers on creating great apps for people." I'm notoriously known as a computer-dummy, but I'm willing, able, and ready to work with venture partners to see this dream become a reality. If I can make money online and I'm technically-challenged, all women entrepreneurs can network, barter and swap human resources as well.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, do you think women have less opportunities than men, and if so how can we change this for the better?

According to the Global Women Entrepreneur Report, women worldwide have extremely less opportunities than men. I agree with the previous women interviewees, that angel investments may not be our avenue of choice, but I believe investors on a small scale such as $2000 - $100,000 would be ideal. There are opportunities for attaining small business loans, that I know, unfortunately the "old boys' clubs" does exist. They gather together and share their personal resources, are willingly investing in their family or friends business startup, and/or will donate time, energy and services. Future fortune is the only driving force, because they are committed to the business structure and process--period. My most favorite success story of mentoring, networking, empowerment, belief, and business leadership and passion is the story of FedEx's startup and present international success.

Female entrepreneurs need to network locally, nationally, and globally. W.E. (women entrepreneurs) must be willing to believe in the business process. EmpowerWomenNow strives to be this online hub. Since our move to WordPress in one short month, we have visitors from 59 countries. I have established relationships with numerous others online and offline women entrepreneur networks who promote the unique products and services offered at EmpowerWomenNow throughout the world. One critical partner is one of Folksonomy’s previous "Female Entrepreneur of the Week" interviewees, Kelly Anderson of StartUpPrincess.

What or who is your greatest source of inspiration?

First and foremost, I thank, worship, and praise God for my inspiration, empowerment, and life in general. I faced a near-death car accident July 2004 that stopped me from a self-destructing lifestyle of entrepreneurship wild. As a freelance writer, past biological researcher and academician, my writing was extremely strict, concise and well--academic. After the accident, while in bed-rest I wrote my debut best-selling book "Empowering Women to Power Network" in 3-days, with a brand-new conversational empowered voice. Again, while authorship and internet marketing started to consume me, I faced another near-death decision to undergo brain surgery or opt of drug therapy for my newly discovered brain disorder that caused partial paralysis of my hands and feet. I was offline and could not work for 11 months. I again was given a chance to re-evaluate my true purpose of life as a wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend...and way down the list Founder of EmpowerWomenNow.

What or who is your personal motivation for being an entrepreneur?

My personal motivation for being an entrepreneur is first my mother. I was born and raised with a successful home day care mom of 24 years, who watched over 110 children, including me and my 3 siblings, and she was the #1 referral for disabled and newborns for home day cares in Central Connecticut by the Connecticut Hotline. I alone was a hand-full, growing up with 3-seasoned sports, 2 instruments, and multiple extra curricular activities such as student government, civic and charitable organizations. I always remembered my mom driving me around, motivating me, encouraging me, and cheering me on in the sidelines. Now, a mom of only 3 children, I have no idea how she handled me, alone. Kudos to mommy!

Second, I'm motivated morning, day and night by my beloved husband (also a home-based entrepreneur) and three daughters (all under 7 years of age) who we “home-schooled.”

Entrepreneurship supports our lifestyle. All five of us, completely understand and appreciate the luxury we have in "time". We are a flexible, world-traveling, and an extremely close-knit family. We put our personal values, morals, and ethics in our daily lives which includes our work and their education as our means to produce this luxury. Our girls were born and are raised with the full understanding of value of money. We all work hard for money, allow it to provide for us, and share extras to charity. The more charitable and hard-working we are, the more we produce.

Message to leave with:

I'd like to thank Sian Liu for conducting a thought-provoking and fun interview. It's an honor to be apart of all the featured entrepreneurs.

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